Lay out your real room with tables and chairs, drag your class into seats or auto-fill them, tag reusable notes against each child, save a named plan for every class, and print it. Whether you call it a seating plan or a seating chart, it works on any whiteboard, laptop or phone, with no download to start. Free to try.
From the classroom
I used to do this with name tags on the desks and nothing written down. No plan on paper, nothing to refer back to. It worked in the sense that everybody had a seat, but it was not thought through, and if I had been off the next day nobody would have known where anyone sat. It was lazy, and I knew it was lazy.
What changed when I started building the plan on a screen was not the seating, it was the thinking. With the whole room laid out in front of me I could look at the working groups properly and decide, rather than putting names down and hoping. And I could see my own mistakes — the two I had separated last term sitting back together, the child I had put at the back again without meaning to.
The other thing it gave back was time. Keeping the plan current used to be a redraw-everything job — every room change, every mid-term move, every “just for science” arrangement. Now the room is built once, bespoke to the classroom I actually teach in, and every change after that — different seats for different lessons, a temporary seat while a friendship cools down, a copy left on the desk for supply — is a drag and a print.
You do not have to build the room from scratch. Start from a one-tap layout — straight rows, a horseshoe, or grouped pods of tables — and everything clicks into place. Then nudge it until it matches your actual classroom: the awkward pillar, the door that opens inwards, the table nobody can see the board from. You build the room once; after that, every change is a two-minute job instead of an evening one.
Because you are solving for several things at once and they contradict each other. Who works well together, who cannot sit together, who needs the front, who needs a strong partner, who has been at the back for two terms running. Thirty children and four or five competing rules is genuinely hard, which is why it takes far longer than anyone expects for a job that sounds like five minutes.
Seeing it laid out is what makes it possible. A list of names cannot show you that you have put both of the chatty pair on the same table again; a picture of the room can, at a glance. Most of the errors in a seating plan are visible ones, and they only become visible when the plan looks like the room.
The things you would tell a colleague about a child in ten seconds. Ability is the obvious one, but the more useful notes are about temperament and pairing: who is quiet and would disappear at the back, who is confident and will fill any silence, which two work well together and which two absolutely do not. Tag a child once and the note follows them into every plan you make for the rest of the year.
Keep them short and keep them factual. A note is written for whoever picks the plan up, which may not be you, so it needs to be something you would be happy for a supply teacher or a parent to read.
This is the reason to print it even when you do not need it yourself. Someone walking into your room cold has no idea who anyone is, and a plan that matches the room means they can find a child by name from the front. The printed sheet carries a notes column down the side, so the person covering gets the pairings and the needs at a glance instead of discovering them the hard way.
There is no right answer, and it is genuinely up to you. Once a term or once a semester is a sensible rhythm — long enough for a class to settle into an arrangement, short enough that nobody is stuck next to the wrong person until July. Outside that, change it when something is not working rather than on a schedule. Because the plan is saved rather than redrawn, moving two children is a ten-second job, so there is no reason to leave a bad pairing in place until the next full shake-up.
Sometimes the fairest plan is no plan. Fill seats deals the whole class into chairs at random — an instant answer to “can I sit next to…?”, and a quick way to break up settled corners without it being personal. Fill again until the room looks workable, then hand-move the two or three placements that genuinely matter.
The layout does more work than the names in it. Pods of four to six for anything collaborative, because children need to be able to see each other to talk properly. Rows facing the front for a test, or for any lesson where you want attention pointed one way and conversation discouraged. A horseshoe for discussion, where every child can see every other child — excellent for debate, unforgiving with a chatty class. Long tables where space is tight and you need everyone in.
You can hold more than one plan for the same class, which is worth doing if you teach different subjects in the same room. The pods you want for group science are rarely the rows you want for a maths assessment, and switching between two saved plans is faster than rebuilding either one.
Is the seating plan maker free?
Building and saving seating plans is free. Printing the finished plan spends one token — every teacher gets 20 free goes. You can start without an account; signing in (also free) just lets you load your class lists and save named plans.
Do I need an account?
No — you can lay out a room and seat pupils straight away. Sign in with Google (free) when you want to load your class lists and save named plans to reuse later.
Can I print my seating chart?
Yes — export a printable PDF with a class-notes column, ready to photocopy or keep on your desk.
Does it save my class and my plans?
Yes — save a named plan for each class, term or subject and reopen any of them. Reusable pupil notes (EAL, sits near the front…) follow each child into every plan you make.
Can I lay out my own tables and chairs?
Yes — add long, small or round tables and single chairs, then move and rotate each piece to match the real layout of your room.
Is there a random seating chart generator?
Yes — use Fill seats to drop the whole class into your layout at once for a random seating chart, then drag anyone who needs moving. It's the quick way to mix a class up fairly.
Can I arrange desks in rows, groups or a horseshoe?
Yes — build any seating arrangement: rows and columns for a test or exam, grouped pods for collaborative work, or a horseshoe for discussion. Move and rotate each table to match your room.
Does it work on a phone or interactive whiteboard?
Yes — the seating chart maker runs on any laptop, phone or classroom whiteboard, with nothing to install.
Sorting pupils into groups rather than seats? Try Groupings. Need to pick a name at random? Spin the Wheel does it fairly. Setting your class up at the start of term? Login Card Maker prints login cards for every pupil.
Written by a practising primary school teacher, and part of the free-to-try classroom tools on Sage Teachers. Last checked August 2026. Building and saving plans is free to try; printing the finished plan spends one token.